Dr. Santiago Palacios, director of the Palacios Institute for Women Health and Medicine, affirmed that osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent diseases after menopause

Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent disease in women- during climacteric, its diagnosis triples due to the lower levels of estrogens and the loss of collagen.

According to Dr. Palacios, coordinator of the 15th National Meeting on Women’s Medicine and Healthcare (SAMEM 15) and one of the speakers at the Bioiberica-hosted table on joint healthcare, apart from risk factors such as obesity or lack of physical exercise, there is also a genetic factor. This factor, coupled with the loss of the hormone’s protective effects, increases predisposition to osteoarthritis.

Palacios explained that, before beginning a treatment, it is important to know a patient’s genetic predisposition to knee osteoarthritis. This is why he recommended the Arthrotest genetic test developed by Bioiberica Farma, a tool with which gynecologists may determine, with 82% accuracy, the predisposition of a patient to suffer from severe osteoarthritis.

As Dr. Palacios explained, gynecologists have the opportunity to “detect, inform and predict” since “during menopause, gynecologists are the women’s physicians, the true caretakers of the women’s health that must provide them with quality of life guidelines”.

This is why Dr. Palacios insisted upon the importance of helping women to carry out a number of hygienic measures that “provide them with sufficient and necessary guidelines to stop the disease’s progression, thereby preventing a stage one disease from evolving into severe, irreversible osteoarthritis”.